The world felt different. Rather, it felt wrong now that the sun never set. Morrighan didn't realize how much she missed the night until this all happened. Maybe the gods were real but they were dicks.
As she walks up a hill within the prairie, she squints her eyes while looking up at the sky. She misses the stars scattered above her and the dark purple of twilight. She also misses the glow of the moon, especially in its fullest form. That was usually when she'd be out here, when she could see it in all its beauty. Now it's just the scorching sun mocking her and drying up the land. If Morrighan isn't careful, she might set Denocte on fire just with the heat from her hooves.
The mare isn't exactly sure what brings her to the prairie now. There is nothing to enjoy out here besides the ridiculously bright sunlight and that is definitely not for her. She is about to head back to the Court's keep when a flicker of movement catches her eye. It's a small black figure in the distance that stops moving once Morrighan turns. It seems familiar and it takes her a second to make out the distinct features of a wolf. Her eyes grow wide and her hooves burn through the grass beneath her.
Wolf. She had not seen their kind since Ourania and the Great War. Novus did not seem to have many of them around and for that she had been thankful - until now. Apparently one managed to find her and she'd make it pay. Morrighan charges full force over the hill in the direction the wolf stood. It turns and runs before she can make it there and seems to disappear once she gets to the hill it had been standing on. How?
The mare is left standing on the hill in anger as smoke rises up behind her. The path she ran across is left scorched by her hooves, but she doesn't care. All she wants is the wolf and the satisfaction of killing it once and for all.
When she sees movement again, she jerks to the side a little too quickly, expecting the wolf to have reappeared. Instead it's another equine and one she does not recognize. Her nostrils flare in frustration. Her mind was on war and bloodshed and not socializing. However, maybe this stranger could make themselves useful and tell her where the wolf had gone.
"You there! Did you see where the black wolf ran off to? It was just here," she shouts, not even asking for the stranger's name first. Morrighan figures she'll deal with that later, but for now she wants the wolf. Hopefully it wouldn't turn out to be this stranger all along having shapeshifted.
@"Al'Zahra" in which Morrighan sees things and makes herself look ridiculous xD
The Illuminated
“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”
For the first time Al'Zahra does not mind the way the sun hangs bloated and red in the sky. Beneath it the flowers are blooming endlessly with fireflies ducking confused between their petals. A doe is nosing around her heavy with child. The meadow seems lost in time with owls soaring over sunflowers and fireflies lighting up the garden like small, lost solar flares. Between it all she is running fleet-footed and belly-low like a lost god. She does not think about how cool, or dark the night could be on her summer damp skin.
She is imagining she is fire streaking under the sun, a flare of heat singing every night-creature lost in the daylight. And if her chains are singing at all it is a piper-tune cutting through the knee high flowers (but she does not pause to see what might be following). On and on she runs, past doe and owls and a lone wolf stalking through the grass like a ghost. Nothing makes her slow. She is the wind; she is smoke.
She is endless.
It's not until a path of scorched grass breaks up the green grass that she slows. Something in her aches to see the smoke and smell the char. Something breaks. Zahra slides to a walk and drops her nose to black mark after black mark. She follows them like a map of dark suns, although her stride is to light and dainty to follow them perfectly. Her sides, frothed and coated with sweat heave with some emotion she is not brave enough to name when a plume of smoke rises above the crest of her hill.
Zahra turns towards it, hungry with curiosity and full with memories. But if she expected to find anything at all when she pauses on the top, it was not a mare with rage in her eyes. Her head lifts back, almost insulted with the shout like a doe startled by an elk crashing recklessly through her thicket. She smiles but it is nothing more than a quick, sly arch of her dark lips. “I imagine that a wolf might be off seeking voles and rabbits in the grass.” When she steps closer it's slowly and her eyes spark golden with amusement (and a little wickedness). “I've never known a predator to be shouted into existence. Have you perhaps tried hunting like a lion instead of like a dragon?” Zahra wants to laugh, she wants to run again like a lost god, she wants to follow the burn marks towards something more than an angry mare. But all she does is cock her head like the owl flying over them and wait for more grass to burn/
As the stranger glides over, there is an odd tune with her gate. She is wearing what appears to be gold chains around her body and all Morrighan can think is how uncomfortable that must be. She then finds herself grinding her teeth as the woman speaks. There is something about her small grin and the glint in her eyes that immediately sets Morr off. Who is she?
"I-" she tries to say, but realizes she doesn't know what to say. The woman actually has a point in suggesting she stalk rather than rush and attack. "Well, what do you know anyway?" She hates that she's right.
But seeing the wolf made her blood boil. For how long she's been in Novus, she had yet to come face to face with a canine. She forgot how much she loathed them and how it brought back strong memories of the Great War. The flashbacks are not ones of victory either. Ever since, she craved the taste of revenge. To finally come out on top, even if the fight was not here. She would finish it here if she had to. Although, she would have to find the wolf first.
"Either way it's important that I find it. For reasons," Morrighan adds, not wishing to explain her motives. Not many would understand anyway.
A light breeze blows through and toys with her forelock. She looks back out at the hills in the distance, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Surely she isn't imagining the wolf's appearance and it has to be somewhere. Maybe as the stranger suggested, she just has to be more crafty.
When she turns back to the other mare, she studies her face and it's certainly not one she recognizes. "Who are you? I don't recall seeing you in Denocte before." She isn't sure whether she should be more skeptical of the wolf or this woman, but the wolf was a strong contender given her background. There is something about her that Morr can't figure out and it bothers her deeply.
@"Al'Zahra" I don't know what kind of post this is, forgive me xD
The Illuminated
“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”
There is a song she remembers singing. Back when the mountains were fresh faced and the ocean shallow enough that she could always see the bottom of it shining like sapphires that went on endlessly, she had sung it. On and on, like the bottom of the sea, she had sung.
Now she cannot remember the way the notes of it had risen and fallen like the flowers coating a valley, only that they had. If there were words they are nothing more than haunting notes of a dream she can never remember when she wakes. And if she had a reason for singing sweeter than any lark perhaps it's better than she cannot remember why.
More than you, she wants to answer. But there is a memory of a song still haunting her and it makes her silent but for that smile that seems to whisper.
Mortals aren't made for singing to new worlds. They are made for dying.
For living too.
Al'Zahra can see it now in this mare's gaze, the spark of life (of youth, of boldness enough to break cities). It calls to something in her, something that howls low at the moon and dances between the fireflies like a god. When she quivers it makes her chains sing a haunting sound that seems almost far away.
Further than that a wolf worships the moon in notes that crack open the silence. She turns towards the sound like a petal turns towards the sun, like it's promising life to all the bits of her that are still just seed and dirt. “And what if it's important to the wolf that you don't?” The way her eyes blaze molten gold suggest bits of that song she cannot recall (sad notes, wild notes). Char crunches over her hooves as she dances close enough to feel the heat radiating off the mare.
She feels like a young sun that hasn't learned how to flare.
“I'm Al'Zahra.” The gold around her hooves hums against her bones, promises of movements she's almost always dreaming of. “I must not be a very good dancer if you don't remember me.” The way she curls her neck, like a doe, suggests that she is unconcerned about the answer.
Part of her already knows that if they were two wolves singing one of them would bellow down the moon and the other would seduce the forests into living forever. Yet still she asks the question, “who are you?
There is a howl in the distance that cuts through the two women's conversation. It's a sort of mockery, as if appearing at random to Morrighan isn't enough. He is laughing at her in his song since he knows she hasn't found him yet. He thinks she never will, but she is determined. She stamps her hoof against the ground, creating more char and smoke beneath her.
The stranger poses a question and suggests the wolf does not want to be found. Morrighan laughs more of a short laugh that matches her disbelief. "If he didn't want to be caught, he wouldn't keep following me," she grumbles. As crazy as she probably sounds, the wolf certainly had been following her the last couple weeks. If she didn't see him, she could feel eyes on her. Those stupid beady canine eyes sinking into her flesh like sharp teeth. Oh, how badly she wanted to do that to him or melt the fur off his body with her fire. The taste of revenge would be so sweet, but alas she is nowhere close to it.
Al'Zahra, a name to the stranger and something exotic on her tongue. As pretty as it sounded, it would likely get butchered if she tried to repeat it back. The name still does not ring a bell in Morr's mind. Apparently she is a dancer, but the spices of Denocte don't seem to cling to her like the others of her Court.
"Morrighan," she replies simply, her name not sounding quite as unique in comparison. "I don't really pay attention to the entertainers. I usually do my own thing and avoid the markets; they're too loud. But-" she pauses, looking over Al'Zahra one more time. The way the chains hang around her body make sense for a dancer, though they still seem uncomfortable and noisy. "You're not from Denocte, are you?"
The wolf's song had briefly stopped, but she hears it start again, this time closer. She gets distracted from the other mare and looks back around for any sign of the black figure. The plains are empty, but still his voice carries over the hills. Morrighan grits her teeth and steps forward as more burned hoofprints are left from her path. She lifts her head and sniffs the air, but still comes up empty.
Perhaps he is a ghost of her past. Maybe she's doomed to be haunted forever by the memory of the war in Ourania. A reminder of her failure in battle.
The Illuminated
“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”
She wants to tell the mare that wolves follow their prey. Or that beasts tease and taunt so that the feast becomes sweet. There are a hundred things she could say about wolves. She knows how they were made, bones of the earth clawing up to wear the skin of the rabbits they feast on. She could talk about how they need to eat the soft-furred things over and over again so the earth can't claim their bones back.
And she knows about the magic in the blood of a wolf, the way it's hot and wild and powerful.
But she says nothing more than, “perhaps”, and it comes out soft enough to be nothing more than a sigh shared between skin and gold (or two mares that know things about fire). A whisper of a smile curls her lips, although the look in her golden eyes is to dark for any smile to reach. They watch the mare like molten gold in the center of the earth, like god-blood, like everything bright in the universe smelted down and sipped like wine. And when the mare burns a little more of the earth away, and char rises up like dead fireflies, Al'Zahra does not step any closer even though she wants to.
She wants to feel the black against her skin. She wants to remember, if only for a moment, what it felt like to be ash on the wind over the seas and the mountains. Remembering, though, is a dangerous thing for her. It's like longing, like drowning in water when all she wants is the grind of salt between her teeth.
“Ah Morrighan,” she says it like another sigh, another blaze of moonlight in the bright of day. “sometimes it's the things beneath all the noise that tell you how exactly how to hunt a wolf.”. When she laughs it's loud yet sweet, like woodland creatures all singing at the same mother moon. There is something dark in it, something like the dark spaces between the moon and her north-star (milky light that ebbs and blazes all at once).
Bits of ash float up around her when she finally steps close. They catch in her chains like flakes of rust and ancient rot. “But you would be correct. I am not from Denocte.” She doesn't offer where she's from though, because gods do not give up their religion freely.
Her words are like poetry and, while intriguing and beautiful, they are lost in Morrighan's mind. She is the type to be straightforward and has no interest in speaking in tongues. It only makes her more frustrated not understanding the statement, especially when the woman laughs. She doesn't like when others make her feel stupid and so she glares at the woman in response.
"English please," she says, her tail flicking in an irritated manner. She's like a cat who's tired of others' shit and is about ready to lash out. The mare refrains - for now. "Or are you suddenly an expert on hunting wolves? Enlighten me," she adds sarcastically. As a dancer, Al'Zahra certainly couldn't be much of a hunter, could she? Although her body does not seem to be built for strength, but more speed and agility.
There is something strange about the mare getting so close to her. Normally Morrighan would react with a swift kick or fireball to the face if anyone invaded her personal space. But as the woman closed in, her scent is stronger. While not Denocte, it's something else. Something foreign and sweet. Is it wood smoke? She can't tell.
Her voice knocks Morrighan out of her daze and she realizes just how close they had gotten. She pins her ears back, but more out of embarrassment than annoyance now. Of course, the woman's origins remain a mystery. Everything about her seems to be shrouded in it and Morr is determined to figure it out.
"Where then? And why come here?" she asks, although now it's more of a demand. Who did this woman think she was, flaunting over and not stating her purpose of being here? What motive did she have? Her gaze changes to suspicion, if anything to hide the fact she had been looking her over a little too much earlier.
The Illuminated
“both beauty and terror, without beginning, without end.”
The space between them lingers on the edge of silence long enough for her to hear the song in the way Morrighan's tail swings against the bluegrass. She can hear too, the embers floating away on the wind and the way it sounds like black snow falling in soft flakes of madness around her. It all makes her skin quiver like a willow branch. And it feels, oh it feels, like the pieces of her are hungry for just an ember of all that rage, and fire, and smoldering fury.
Her secrets are all on the tip of her tongue. She can feel them building there like a storm, like every bit of her clawing its way out into the world (only the ancient parts, only the dead parts). She swallows and it tastes like ash and summer seeds. She says nothing.
Every inch of her starts to learn forward into that lingering silence between them. The chains on her shoulders start to sing against her skin and sinew. Even as Morrighan lashes her ears back and turns into a cat (a jungle cat she thinks) waiting to strike, Zahra is curling her neck like a snake waiting only to dance a man to his death. “Someday I'll enlighten you. If you promise to come see me dance.” Finally her smile reaches her eyes with sparks of molten god-gold and something like a memory of burning alive.
She steps closer, hoping for the sting of fire or the touch of danger, anything to break this storm-stillness between them. Still there is that itch beneath her skin, a promise of song and running and wildness. There is a memory too, of being a wolf howling at the moon fat with rabbit (but she knows better than to share that). “I come from nowhere in particular.” It's there in her eyes, the suggestion that she knows all the ways in which the wilds are better than walls, titles, and gods with their terrible magic to destroy it all. A suggestion she's all too willing to share is there too, when she steps close enough that their shadows tangle together easy as breathing.
“I came to Denocte because I fell in love with the markets.” Even now she can hear the merchants yelling insults to each other, and the promise of magic in the jasmine smoke. Her chains sigh with the memory when she stretches her head down to lip at the grass even though she has no hunger it can tame.
Somewhere the wolf starts to howl again and again. She can see the mare yearn towards it with something other than fury. Al'Zahra laughs and it's deep enough to be another song for the moon and the sun and all the wilds untouched.
But the city is calling and she's not wanting for a hunt--- not yet. So she only offers a breath of air against the mare's hip (not close enough to touch, only enough to feel) and the words, “And maybe I feel in love with its fires too.”. She's still laughing when she turns to gallop back to the city and all its hedonistic freedom.
And when she dips beyond the hill, Zahra lifts her head back and howls.
She swears the woman of gold is teasing her. She'll give Morrighan a tiny amount of information, but then holds back the rest. Almost like a game of cat and mouse where Morr is losing and it's pissing her off.
But then there is the space between them closing in. It sets her on edge, but there is something else. Something other than the spark of embers from her magic. Another kind of spark that she's not familiar with and isn't sure if she wants to be. It's a mixture of emotions that confuses her. Was that Al'Zahra's secret? The ability to make others go crazy?
So the woman does not tell her why she seems to understand wolves so well. Morrighan will have to go see her dance in order to get any answers it seems. Her two-colored eyes narrow and look straight into the bright irises of the other mare's. Their color reminds her of liquid gold.
And here is the game again where Al'Zahra says she comes from nowhere, but came to Denocte because she loves the markets. Surely the woman came from somewhere because one didn't just pop into existence out of thin air. But no, she has to keep an air of mystery.
Her last line before galloping off does not help. She fell in love with the fires- does that mean she likes fire as much as Morr does? There are so many questions and loose ends when the mare leaves. For once, Morr is speechless.
Will I ever actually see you again? she thinks to herself as she watches the dancer dressed in gold lift her head back to howl. Some sick joke this must be and yet, Morr somehow finds it beautiful.
She shakes her head and turns to go back home, leaving the chorus of howls behind her.
@"Al'Zahra" just a closer <3 I need them together again soon
